Bidet Conversion

Back when the pandemic first started and you couldn't find toilet paper anywhere, a friend of mine mentioned she'd installed a bidet conversion kit in her house. After thinking that over for a while - months, in fact - I asked if she minded showing and explaining it to me. At that point I had never seen one, had only my imagination to explain how they might work, and had never considered one for myself. The few books I'd read that might have mentioned one simply assumed, I guess, that either everybody was already so informed or was hopelessly primitive. Or worse.

My friend welcomed showing me how hers was installed, though no actual demonstration was included on its use, just an explanation, along with the comment installation only took her 15 minutes. TP eventually returned to the shelves, and the thought of getting one or two bidets  for the home simply sat in the far nether regions of my brain. There were other things to spend my money on, and TP is again/still plentiful.

Christmas this year brought with it a nice gift card to Target. I was as yet unwilling to go to the store and just browse, looking around for something to buy, between pre- and post- holiday shopping crowds and a new covid variant we didn't seem to be covered for despite being vaxxed and boostered. Target does, however, have a great online presence, and while I was pretty sure it didn't have any kind of plumbing department in store, I thought I'd check that out. In fact, online they had so many choices for bidet conversions with all varieties of features and prices that I set it aside until later when Steve and I together could make a choice. Once things settled down, he agreed that a bidet was an interesting idea, and that I should pick what I thought best for him to look at, which turned out to be the Genie Bidet Accessory. We both agreed Rich could install them once they got here. He's the obvious choice: free for us, indebted to us for some practical work, with sound knees and plenty of practical experience in all kinds of areas.

One is installed. It came with a website listing on the box for the installation video (much better idea than tiny-print multi-language multi-folded piece of paper!) so watching that came first. Water is supplied by putting a splitter on the existing water supply hose to the tank, down at floor level. When installation got bogged down at that point briefly, I reminded Rich we were OK with him shutting house water off outside for a few minutes, since the bathroom valve wasn't quite doing its job and he needed a few towels for the floor. But he wasn't going to ask, oh no. Little bit of stubborn streak there, battling against 60 psi water pressure in the house, enough to keep our freezer icemaker from politely filling the cubes rather than spraying water all over the ice compartment and freezing everything to a solid block!

Yeah, we'd learned that lesson first season - uh, week - down here.

 The 15 minute job became 3 hours. His story -and he's sticking to it - was he needed to "make" a couple bumpers for the front of the toilet seat so it would sit level once the new attachment went in between the seat back and toilet rim. He claims that putting the second bidet in will just take those actual 15 minutes since he made 4 bumpers, two for each, and knows how to do it. So far he hasn't found those 15 minutes. Now aside for emergencies, we just use the one bathroom. We all seem to like it.

There's a short learning curve involved in using it. Once ready to turn it on, simply reach the right hand down and find a knob next to the toilet at seat level and rotate it toward you for the "feminine" spray, and away for the "bum" spray. I don't always line up exactly where the spray hits, but a little wiggling makes it right.  Rich's comment was to always be seated before started to turn it on. He said it with enough emphasis that I suspect he gave it a try while standing in front of it, once installed, to see if the water was flowing right. I also suspect very strongly that it was working perfectly!

One advantage is it needs no extra floor space, so no big bathroom remodel needed to put it in. We have used a teensy bit of TP since it got installed, in my case just because I haven't broken the habit yet. Rich wants a supply of small washcloths handy but I find that just sitting for half a minute once the water is off lets me pretty well just drip dry, no wiping required. I'm delighted with the new feeling of cleanliness, including having less-dirty laundry for the hamper. I also don't miss the irritation that TP seems to make unavoidable, no matter the brand or variety of softness. The strongly diminished quantity of TP used not only aids the environment, it also makes me believe that I can put off repairing that broken sewer tile near the sidewalk (our part of the pipe, our cost to repair) for a significant while longer, now with nearly nothing going through to clog it. The lower TP use should be even better if one has a septic system.

While you can buy these with their own mini water heaters, my friend who originally showed me one never got hers that way, and insists most of the world that uses them (other than high buck hotels) doesn't heat their bidet water. Using a heater not only adds cost, one must have an electric outlet near the toilet, seldom a great idea under any circumstances with electrocution possibilities. Unless you're using the bidet just after a shower, doing dishes or laundry, or some other major water usage, the water that contacts you should be at room temperature. In cold winter climates, I can see where it might be startling on occasion, just like I suspect it might in the opposite way in an AZ summer, especially here where our pipes run through the attic to split hot/cold next to the water heater. But as my friend put it, if the rest of the world can do it, so can we. 

Our family rating? Best X-mas present ever!!!!!